Sea Scape
Sea Scape Perfume by Anu Essentials is my ode to Auset, the primordial Great Mother. In the ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) tradition, Auset is mother of mothers. Known for her great capacity to nourish and nurture, she gives birth and life to all things. She is magic and mystery and all things deep and true. Her love and patient strength know no bounds.
Auset is uncompromisingly devoted, especially to children and family. Children love and gravitate toward someone (female or male) in whom the Auset faculty is well-developed. That person is loving, understanding, patient and caring; she or he wants to feed you, wants you to feel loved.
Auset’s essence resides in the sea. She is mighty and unconquerable, yet she flows effortlessly under, around, above and beyond obstructions, always avoiding conflict. She likes things that are watery, like lettuce, watermelon and cucumbers. These are among the items you’d take to the beach as an offering to the Great Mother, whose love for her children runs as deep as the sea.
As someone born under a fire sign and on a Tuesday (a day ruled by Mars), my tendency is to be other than the Great Mother. I’m more often fiery and impatient and am reminded that I need to do more to develop my Auset faculty. And so it is with great desire that I set out to create a scent to help remind me to embody Auset’s essence. I know that I am drawn to those things that represent the Great Mother such as cowrie shells, pearls, crystals, the moon and I absolutely love being in the ocean. So it is with the creation of Sea Scape that I set out to design a perfume to help invoke her energy, her demeanor and ways of functioning. If the Great Mother doesn’t seem quite sexy enough, remember Auset is the source of that primal and irresistible magnetism through which pregnancy and birth come to be…
Jasmine is one of Auset’s flowers and from the conception of this fragrance I knew I wanted this perfume to be centered around two primary essences, jasmine and seaweed. I was invited to participate in Monica Miller’s Primordial Scents 2012 Perfume Project, which would launch in June. The challenge would be to make a perfume using these two dense elements in a harmonious way and not have it be too heavy for a June launch.
Considering the depth of seaweed, I attempted to keep the rest of the base notes light with a boswella frankincense, Ethiopian opoponax, sustainable sandalwood and costus. For the heart I have two jasmines playing off one another: a grandiflorum absolute and a jasmine e.o. Blended with these two intoxicating essences are violet leaf for that lettuce element, a little pimento berry to spice it up, neroli and an exquisite rose alba. I wanted to continue with lightness, so there are several citrus scents at the top. They include petitgrain, white grapefruit, and clementine.
My fragrance designs are often unconventional, I know. Perhaps it’s the classic case of a student new to the art unwittingly breaking the rules. I know that experimenting with scents is enormously fulfilling. I’m excited, creatively inspired and in love with the process, even if I’m not always initially in love with the results. I sincerely hope that others will find something to love in something I’ve created.
Sea Scape will be launched this June and will be available at the Anu Essentials website and at the Khamit Kinks salon.
Today as a gentle wind blew, I was pleasantly visited by the seductive scent of the honeysuckle vine blooming in my garden. What a treat! I stopped dead in my tracks to truly experience the moment. I took in a few long, deep breaths of this lovely scent. The gifts from nature never cease to amaze me in their beauty and their giving…
Taking good care of yourself is one good thing that many Moms can’t seem to find the time to do. And one really easy and accessible fix for a tired mine, body and spirit, is bathing. As far as I’m concerned bathing is paramount to a spiritual experience. To be able to cleanse the body daily, is a true blessing often taken for granted in our culture. The ritual of bathing is renewing, refreshing and soothes the spirit. And a shower is no comparison to soaking in a tub of warm water. What makes this experience all the more special for me, is knowing that I am cleansing and moisturizing with products that are healthy for my body and that uplift my mind and spirits! This is what Anu Essentials offers for your morning and/or evening bathing ritual. Natural handmade soaps and Body Butters scented with botanicals.
One thing that can cause me to completely lose track of time, is making natural hair and body products using essential oils, resins and balsams. There is such a wide range of nature’s oils, that blending these live substances is a mixture of art and science. In addition to their healing powers, these oils (many of them classified as precious) possess the ability to affect your consciousness, to relax or stimulate or send you reeling down memory lane. 
Two of my favorite perfumers 
Ask some folks if they prefer 
The Christmas season is a time when peppermint (candy) is ever popular. When I was a little girl, as much as I liked candy, Christmas candy was my least favorite. It reminded me of medicine, though without other choices, I’ll admit, I still ate it. I now realize those Christmas candies were spiced with herbs like anise, fennel, ginger etc. But the herbal candy that was always a treat was the abundant peppermint.
On a little vacation with my sister friends this August I was in my glory just having hours of nothing to do but sit under an umbrella and read. I love reading, that’s my idea of precious time. I decided to check out Diahann Carroll’s book, “
One thing I’ve come to realize about myself is, how much I am affected by the seasons. Am I stating the obvious? I believe that some of us are much more affected by the change of season than others.
When the economic crisis start getting really fierce in the last quarter of 2008, was around the same time the lease was ending on my 
A number of months ago I wrote a blog post commiserating about my seemingly overnight 
Despite the very strange weather that we’ve been having, the gardening season is officially here. A couple of weeks ago on Memorial Day weekend, my sister and I braved the 
My love affair with jewelry began innocently enough many years ago (when I was in my twenties) and then grew into a full-blown obsession. It got so bad that seven months ago I took what was supposed to be a year’s hiatus from purchasing jewelry. But recently, (seven months later) I fell off the wagon. I’ll tell you more on that topic later.
As a birthday gift, my niece, Zauditu invited me to a day at a spa. Now normally, if you say spa I start drooling, but she said Korean Spa and immediately I had a whole different response, because I had heard these spas are like bathhouses. And personally, I don’t go in for “public bathing”. I start having all kinds of ideas about how sanitary can it be? But I decided that since she was so excited about the idea, I would just say yes. Amazing things happen when you say, “yes” in life and I’m definitely up for what’s amazing.
The first time I saw a picture of a peony, I feel in love with this gorgeous flower and it’s been a mad romance since that day. And this began with a mere picture of the flower. Never mind the fact that it was the middle of the summer. I knew not much about gardening, except that I had just caught the gardening bug. I purchased the peony roots and proceeded to plant them in the dead of the summer. Of course since peonies are to be planted in the fall, nothing came of those efforts, except a loss of money and a great lesson learned. RIF, reading is fundamental. Had I read the package, I would have known this was not the right time for planting peonies.
When was the last time you took a bath? Yes, I know you bathe everyday, but I’m referring to actually sitting down in a tub of water, with bubbles, and candles and just relaxing. I use to have a weekly ritual of taking a bath every Sunday. That was one way to ensure I took a bath at least once a week.
My, some times it’s so cold in March you’re tempted ask the weather, “Hey don’t you get it, spring is here”? But despite the cold, I can still feel spring in the air. I see it all around me as the colors appear in my own front yard. I have some evergreen 
I’ve had an usually difficult time with the weather this winter. It seems that I’m always cold, cold at work, cold at home, cold in the streets. I do all I can do to warm myself up. I wear thermals, layers, drink plenty of tea, wear socks to bed, you name it.
On February 13th in honor of Valentine’s Day and in hopes of bringing understanding to the love thing, we had a small forum at 
During this Valentine’s Season I love to encourage my sisters to remember to love themselves, to get involved in fine art of Self Seduction. If you are without a mate at this time, that’s no reason not to celebrate this Valentine’s Day. It is said, that if you don’t love yourself, appreciate and treat yourself well, why should someone else want to? It starts with you! Here are a few of my ideas for celebrating Valentine’s Day, if your “significant other”, hasn’t arrived in your life just yet.
From time to time I’ll have a sleepless night. I used to just lay there stressed about not being able to get back to sleep. That certainly wasn’t the answer for getting back to sleep. Over the years I’ve come across some great remedies listed below.
